Have you spotted any random hidden doors around town this week? They've been popping up all over Edinburgh. But what are they for?

Months of planning will begin to bear fruit today for organisers of Edinburgh's Hidden Door Festival. They used the doors to raise interest among those who weren't at last year's event.

Now in its second year, Hidden Door is a self-funded festival bringing together 40 bands, 60 artists, 20 poets and 20 film makers to transform the Roxy Art House in the city's Southside. The weekend-long event is the brainchild of many volunteers from Edinburgh and beyond. It will see the theatre space transformed into a vastly different spaces.

One of the Hidden Doors outside the Cameo cinema

The top floor of the Roxy has become a garden of plants, turf and artwork combined with a rabbit warren of pods. Its transformation is currently being captured in a time-lapse video.

Collaboration and stimulating the creative scene in Scotland is a passion for the festival's curator and director, Edinburgh artist David Martin.

Fed up at seeing the city's best artists lured abroad, he set up the Hidden Door Festival to give them a reason to stay.

He said:

"Ever since I left Edinburgh College of Art in 2000 I've been amazed at how few opportunities there are for artists in Edinburgh to really show what they are capable of.

"The art scene is either dominated by institutions or commercial concerns, and I was inspired by travelling to places like Budapest in Eastern Europe and seeing their energetic DIY culture.

"I was aware of so much talent being lured away from Edinburgh due to lack of opportunity. I love Edinburgh and I wanted to create a reason for artists to want to stay. A way for the musicians to let rip with their creativity and I thought getting them together with a bunch of artists and poets and film makers might just flick the switch and turn the whole thing on!"

The main space will be filled with five stages, each one created through a collaboration of artists, musicians, poets and film-makers.

One of the less well-hidden doors promoting the Hidden Door Festival outside The Lot in the Grassmarket

The Roxy's bar will host Hidden Cinema, showcasing the talent of short film-makers from Scotland and beyond with more than 40 films being shown across the weekend.

The downstairs room, usually reserved for gigs will be the room of Impossible Interactions, where six artists have created individual pieces inviting audience interaction.

Supporting emerging art talent is a huge part of what makes Hidden Door work. Its organisers encourage collaboration between established artists and graduates from ECA, GSA and DJCAD.

Friday and Sunday evenings see a five band collaboration between Dead Boy Robotics, Lipsync for a Lullaby, The Foundling Wheel, Tokamak and American Men (LuckyMe).

On Friday while playing their straight sets, five bands will be filmed in a unique way, using a succession pin-hole cameras. Then on Sunday the bands play again, simultaneously on all five stages playing a composition seamlessly between the stages, culminating in a finale that involves all the bands, accompanied by visuals from the prepared film reel.

Stack said:

"Events should encourage inclusivity and cultural pluralism underpinned by a sense of respect between different specialisms, not complete separation between them, and Hidden Door serves exactly this cohesive function.

"Hidden Door and Ten Tracks work well together because the event's artform-inclusive curation format maps well onto the eclectic mixtape format of the music output on.

"Ten Tracks in turn releases music from the acts playing at the event, to celebrate. This time the city's white hot export of futuremusic, LuckyMe, are also on board with live-shows and visuals.

"Hidden Door II promises to be even more mind-blowing than the last event. This partnership is one of the things that makes Ten Tracks stand out as more than just an online music shop - and this kind of added value applies to everyone taking part."